Attractive educational strategies in teaching and learning chemistry

The main objectives of this article is to find attractive and appropriate educational strategies and methodologies that could be used in teaching and learning chemistry in order to attract new generations to appreciate studying the most important discipline in science; chemistry. Chemistry is considered as the central backbone for science since its concepts and theories can explain all the scientific phenomena. Since science is the core of the human sustainability, therefore improvement of chemical education would definitely result in improvement of social sustainability. Attractive educational strategies in teaching and learning chemistry can be achieved by using attractive and interactive appropriate methodologies such as Systemic Approach (SATLC), E-learning, M-learning, and any other tools in which modern technologies are integrated

Quand les patients enseignent l’empathie aux étudiants : une revue systématique des interventions visant à promouvoir l’empathie chez les étudiants en médecine

Background: Despite growing emphasis on empathic care, numerous studies demonstrate diminishing empathy in medical students. Involving patient educators in medical curricula may be a solution. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review to evaluate patient-involved interventions that promote empathy among medical students.  Method: A literature search of MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, and ERIC databases was performed using the keywords “empathy,” “medical student,” and their synonyms. Results were independently screened in duplicate. Conflicts were resolved by group consensus. All English studies describing interventions that promote empathy in medical students engaging patient educators were included. Relevant data was extracted and summarized. Results: 1467 studies were screened. 14 studies were included, of which 10 were pilot studies. Studies included patient involved interventions such as storytelling (5/14), shadowing patients (3/14), recorded videos (3/14), or combinations of methods (3/14). Qualitative measurements of empathy included written feedback and group discussions. Quantitative measurements included validated scales measuring empathy. All studies demonstrated increase in empathy among medical students. Participants reported satisfaction with training and patients reported being proud of giving back by training future physicians. Conclusion: Interventions engaging patient educators were shown to have a positive impact on medical student empathy. Furthermore, patient-led education was shown to increase medical student understanding of subject and knowledge retention while empowering patients. Further implementation of patient-involved education is an important step forward in patient-partnered care and may identify additional advantages of patient engagement in medical education.Contexte : Malgré l’importance grandissante accordée à l’empathie dans les soins de santé, de nombreuses études démontrent une diminution de l’empathie chez les étudiants en médecine. La participation de patients éducateurs dans les programmes d’études médicales pourrait être une solution. Nous avons donc réalisé une revue systématique pour évaluer les interventions qui visent à promouvoir l’empathie chez les étudiants et qui font participer des patients. Méthode : Nous avons effectué une recherche dans les bases de données MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO et ERIC en utilisant les mots-clés « empathie », « étudiant en médecine » et leurs synonymes. Les résultats ont été examinés de manière indépendante et en double. Les conflits ont été résolus par consensus de groupe. Toutes les études en anglais décrivant des interventions visant à promouvoir l’empathie chez les étudiants en médecine avec la participation de patients éducateurs ont été incluses. Les données pertinentes ont été extraites et résumées. Résultats : Des 1467 études examinées, 14 ont été incluses, dont 10 études pilotes. Les interventions avec des patients mentionnées dans les études comprenaient des récits (5/14), l’observation des patients (3/14), des vidéos enregistrées (3/14) ou des combinaisons de méthodes (3/14). Les mesures qualitatives de l’empathie comprenaient des commentaires écrits et des discussions de groupe. Les mesures quantitatives étaient des échelles validées mesurant l’empathie. Toutes les études indiquent une augmentation de l’empathie chez les étudiants en médecine. Les participants se disent satisfaits de la formation et les patients déclarent être fiers de redonner aux soignants en contribuant à former les futurs médecins. Conclusion : Les interventions faisant appel à des patients éducateurs ont eu un effet positif sur le développement de l’empathie des étudiants en médecine. En outre, il a été démontré que la participation de patients dans la formation augmentait la compréhension du sujet et la rétention des connaissances par les étudiants en médecine tout en responsabilisant les patients. La généralisation de l’intervention des patients dans l’éducation constitue une avancée importante dans les soins en partenariat avec le patient et pourrait révéler d’autres avantages de la participation des patients dans l’éducation médicale

Comparative Study of Different Techniques for Automatic Evaluation of English Text Essays

 Automated essay evaluation keeps to attract a lot of interest because of its educational and commercial importance as well as the related research challenges in the natural language processing field. Automated essay evaluation has the feature of halves, less cost of human resource, and gives the results directly and timely feedback compared with the human evaluator which requires more time and it depends on his /her mood at certain times. This paper has focused on automated evaluation of English text which was performed using various algorithms and techniques by making comparison between these techniques that applied with different size of dataset and length essays as well as the performance of algorithms was assessed using different metrics. The results uncovered that the performance of each technique has affected by the size of dataset and the length of essays. Finally, for future research directions building a standard dataset containing different types of question-answer pair to be able to compare the performance of different techniques fairly

Morphology and annealing kinetics of ion tracks in minerals

We have studied the morphology and annealing kinetics of ion tracks in Durango apatite using synchrotron small angle X-ray scattering. The non-destructive, artefact-free technique enables us to determine the track radii with a resolution of fractions of

Absence of CD59 in guinea pigs: Analysis of the Cavia porcellus genome suggests the evolution of a CD59 pseudogene

CD59 is a membrane-bound regulatory protein that inhibits the assembly of the terminal membrane attack complex (C5b-9) of complement. From its original discovery in humans almost 30 years ago, CD59 has been characterized in a variety of species, from primates to early vertebrates, such as teleost fish. CD59 is ubiquitous in mammals; however, we have described circumstantial evidence suggesting that guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) lack CD59, at least on erythrocytes. In this study, we have used a combination of phylogenetic analyses with syntenic alignment of mammalian CD59 genes to identify the only span of genomic DNA in C. porcellus that is homologous to a portion of mammalian CD59 and show that this segment of DNA is not transcribed. We describe a pseudogene sharing homology to exons 2 through 5 of human CD59 present in the C. porcellus genome. This pseudogene was flanked by C. porcellus homologs of two genes, FBXO3 and ORF91, a relationship and orientation that were consistent with other known mammalian CD59 genes. Analysis using RNA sequencing confirmed that this segment of chromosomal DNA was not transcribed. We conclude that guinea pigs lack an intact gene encoding CD59; to our knowledge, this is the first report of a mammalian species that does not express a functional CD59. The pseudogene we describe is likely the product of a genomic deletion event during its evolutionary divergence from other members of the rodent order

SAXS study of ion tracks in San Carlos olivine and Durango apatite

Ion tracks were generated in crystalline San Carlos olivine (Mg,Fe) 2SiO 4 and Durango apatite Ca 10(PO 4) 6F 2 using different heavy ions ( 58Ni, 101Ru, 129Xe, 197Au, and 238U) with energies ranging between 185 MeV and 2.6 GeV. The tracks and their annealing behavior were studied by means of synchrotron based small angle X-ray scattering in combination with in situ annealing. Track radii vary as a function of electronic energy loss but are very similar in both minerals. Furthermore, the annealing behavior of the track radii has been investigated and preliminary results reveal a lower recovery rate of the damaged area in olivine compared with apatite

A one-pot Synthesis of Some New Heterocyclic Compounds Derived from Chalcones and Study of their Antitumor and Antimicrobial Activities

The aim of the present work is to efficiently synthesize promising novel antitumor and antimicrobial active heterocyclic compounds from chalcones 1a and 1b as a precursor which contain naphthalene moiety and indole or piperonal moiety, respectively, using conventional, ultrasonic and microwave irradiation techniques. The best yields and purity were afforded with the microwave irradiation technique. Reaction of 1a and 1b with the appropriate reagent gave the corresponding pyrazolines 2a, 2b, pyrimidine-2-thioneses 3a, 3b, oxazepines 4a, 4b, diazepines 5a, 5b, triazolo-pyrimidines 6a, 6b, and pyrimidine-2-thiols 7a, 7b derivatives. Compounds 7a, 7b were used to produce 8a, 8b. Moreover, pyrimidine-2-thione 3a was used to synthesize pyrimidin-2-ylthioacetic acid 9a, and 2-hydrazinylpyrido[2,3-d]pyrimidine derivative 10a which has been used as a functionalizing agent to produce compounds 11a-14a. The structural formulas of the synthesized compounds were confirmed by their spectral data; FT-IR, 1H NMR, 13C NMR and MS. Compounds 3a, 5a, 7a, 13a showed a very high activity as antitumor, whereas compounds 4a, 6a, and 13a showed high activity as antibacterial and antifungal agents

Self-medication practice among undergraduate medical students of a Saudi tertiary institution

Purpose: To assess the knowledge, attitude and magnitude of self-medication among medical students of Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia.Methods: A cross-sectional, self-administered questionnaire-based study was conducted among undergraduate medical students of Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia. A total of 300 students were selected by random sampling.Results: Self-medication practice was highly prevalent among the medical students, with 87 % reporting that they indulge in it. Self-medication was more prevalent among female students than male. Sedatives were the most common drugs used by students for self-medication (58 %). The most common reason adduced for self-medication practice was their belief that they have sufficient information, previous experience, and the experience of others, such as family members and colleagues, with regard to the drugs. A huge proportion (84.5 %) of the respondents agreed that selfmedication could be harmful and is associated with adverse effects, while 52.6 % stated that they would not advise other persons to indulge in self-medication.Conclusion: Self-medication is prevalent among third-year medical students of Jazan University in Saudi Arabia. Although the students exhibited sufficient awareness of self-medication, the findings highlight the need for intervention programmes regarding the practice of self-medication.Keywords: Self-medication, Prevalence, Awareness, Sedatives, Medical student

Latent ion tracks in amorphous silicon

We present experimental evidence for the formation of ion tracks in amorphous Si induced by swift heavy-ion irradiation. An underlying core-shell structure consistent with remnants of a high-density liquid structure was revealed by small-angle x-ray scattering and molecular dynamics simulations. Ion track dimensions differ for as-implanted and relaxed Si as attributed to differentmicrostructures andmelting temperatures. The identification and characterization of ion tracks in amorphous Si yields new insight into mechanisms of damage formation due to swift heavy-ion irradiation in amorphous semiconductors